Blu-ray Review: “Furious” Looks Spectacular But The Acting Leaves A Lot To Be Desired

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In the 13th century, Mongol warrior hordes control most of the known world. Terrified by the ruthless invaders, most of the Russian princes surrender their lands on enemy terms, until a knight leads the charge to avenge his love and his homeland.

“Furious,” also known as “Legend of Kolovrat,” tells the story of the invasion of Russia by the Mongols in the year 1237. It is based on “The Tale of the Destruction of Riazan,” and focuses on the capture of the city of Ryazan, at the time under the control of the Golden Horde. How much of this movie is actually based on true events is up for debate as most of the story centers on Evpaty Kolovrat (Ilya Malakov), a Ryazan knight who stood up to the Mongols when nobody else would.

After the Golden Horde (a mixture of Turks and Mongols), reach the outskirts of the city of Ryazan, Prince Fedor (Ilya Antonenko) instructs a small group of his men, led by his fiercest warrior, Evpaty, to go to the Horde’s leader, Emperor Batu Khan (Aleksandr Choi), with an offering of gold and silver. When Batu refuses, stating that he will instead take control of the city and all its inhabitants will kneel before him, Evpaty and his men get into a sword fight with Batu’s men and manage to escape with their lives but with a snowstorm fast approaching, they find solace in a nearby cave and wait until the storm passes them by. When they return to their city, however, they find it in ruins, with only a handful of survivors. When Evpaty realizes that his wife Nastya and their young children perished in the battle, he takes it upon himself to fight back against the Golden Horde, reaching out to two neighboring cities asking them to join the fight but when they decline to stand by them, instead, choosing to take refuge behind their city walls, Evpaty and his men take the Golden Horde on themselves in a battle that would change history forever.

Directors Dzhanik Fayziev and Ivan Shurkhovetskiy borrow heavily from the Zack Snyder School of Filmmaking as every fight scene succumbs to glorious slow motion, complete with swords slicing and dicing and blood spurts galore, akin to Snyder’s “300.” Unfortunately, they are the only good aspects of the film. The movie’s central protagonist, Evpaty, played by Russian newcomer Ilya Malakov, makes Chuck Norris look like Robert De Niro. He is constantly stoic and unemotional, and while this characteristic works perfectly fine during the battle scenes, for moments early on in the film when he is with his family and is supposed to be happy, he instead looks disinterested, and his lack of acting experience shows through. How he managed to land the lead role in a big-budget Russian action movie is beyond me but as an indie filmmaker myself for over 30 years, he would not have made it past the first audition.

In all fairness though, the rest of the cast doesn’t fare much better. For the most part, they stand around looking unresponsive and that falls on directors Dzhanik Fayziev and Ivan Shurkhovetskiy. Surprisingly, both men have extensive experience in the world of filmmaking and directing in general, so maybe they’re the George Lucas’s of Russia, whose only real direction amounts to “Faster, more intense.” In the end, “Furious” succeeds only because of its lavish cinematography by Maksim Osadchiy-Korytkovskiy, he captures every frame magnificently and even though the actors’ performances fall flat, their visual representation is anything but.

Now available on Blu-ray & DVD